Catching up

Hey, remember when this blog used to be about knitting?  Neither do I!  It's been an awful month, but here's some non-angsty stuff.

I knit a hat:

It's the Bloody Stupid Johnson hat from Knitty.  I think it makes my nose look huge.  I made it once before and it came out too small - this time I used worsted yarn instead of DK and it came out huge.  What was meant to be a beanie became a slouchy hat that just hangs off my head.  Ah well.  After the agonizing number of times that I had to rip out the cabled band to correct mistakes I'm not eager to try for a third hat.

On a whimsical note, I made this pin:

The blue base is made of strips cut out of a blue grocery bag, and the green bits are tabs from Lime-a-rita cans.  It's all mounted onto a safety pin, though unless I resurrect my crazy blue-and-lime-green outfit that I wore so many times in college, I'm not sure what I'll pin it to.

I also made a necklace and a hat to wear as part of a costume for Retro Day at work.  I was aiming for an early 70's look, but it turned out more late 60's flower child.  No pictures of the full ensemble yet, though the gal who shot one at work promised me a print when they're developed.

 The necklace is technically only half-finished, but I made it the night before I needed it and eventually I had to call it good enough.  I like the effect with the half-flowers, though, they look like leaves.  I may finish it or I may leave it as it is.

And I did FINALLY finish the Gazing at the Stars with Edmund shawl (Stargazing would have been a more succinct name, Ms. Horrowitz).

Please excuse the mess.  The shawl is pretty impressive-looking all laid out like this, but it's just about impossible to wear.  I knew it was impractical from the start, but I'm stubborn like that.

Jiji has some nasty looking abscesses on her neck now, because the poor thing didn't have enough problems.

Blah

My mind is all abuzz with the things I cannot say.  These little faltering attempts - what do they signify?

Jiji lost her kittens.  Four little bodies, fascinating and awful.  It was too soon.  Little kitten fetuses, with tiny claws.  Two of them had black noses already, like their mama.

The hundred other things weighing on my mind refuse to be typed up yet.  There's just poor Jiji, and . . .

I feel like a moth beating my wings against a window, trying to escape.  I feel like I've been poisoned.

Keeping secrets

Silas is asleep at the breast, Jiji is possibly having kittens under the bed, Theo is meowing at the window, Ryan is at work, and here I am, wishing I could run away.

I'm curious to see how it plays out.  Will there be another?  Was it just a temporary burst of madness?  I can relate to madness.

I've spent the day in a bit of a daze.  Part of it is hunger - there's very little food in the house as we try to coast by on what we have while we try to recover from unexpected expenses.  Dratted cars and their dratted alternators.  The rest, of course, is drama.

I try to avoid drama.  I find it exhausting.

Fighting back (or lashing out)

He drives me crazy.  He drives me bats.  I never should have let things come this far.  I knew it would be trouble from the very start, but I have a long history of ignoring red flags and letting my misguided heart take the reins.

Sensibility, thy name is Marianne.

You just make me so angry.  I'm so tired of being angry.  I'm tired of having this looming over my head.













































It's this feeling like everything I love is slipping out of my grasp, and there's nothing I can do to stop it, and if I even tried I'd break.  I am breaking.  I'm all run over with cracks, crumbling at the edges, just waiting for one good blow to finish the job.  These smiles are fragile.  These smiles are fake.

When did I get to be so good at faking it?  Must be retail.  Like answering the phone, I automatically put on my best polite voice and a nice smile to set you at your ease, and I can't answer back when you're rude.







































It's getting harder all the time.  It looms.  It lingers.  Even when I'm happiest, it's there, whispering in my ear that we're not all where we're supposed to be.  We'd rather be somewhere else.

I'd rather be dead.

I've never been given to violent impulses (lie) but it makes me want to burn their house down.  It makes







































I can't remember now.  It was such a big deal then.  I can remember standing in front of the mirror thinking about what a big deal it was.  I can remember being especially undecided about my hair.  I do remember my hair.  It was two braids, and on the advice of a friend I left them down instead of pinning them up.  There may have been ribbons.

I do remember what I wore then.  The black dress, the red skirt, the lace, the glower hiding behind the oh so fake polite mask, the absurd shoes.  In my head so unique, so set apart, so Susan, and you were so blah, and I wondered what it could possibly be.

I don't belong here.

It's such a waste of time.  I can disappear, and no one would notice.  Just vanish into the woodwork, into the hallway, out of your life, and you would be so much happier.

I'm a nice background, anyway.  A nice wallpaper.  Something pleasant to perk up the atmosphere of the room, but not much else.

How do I make myself matter?







































Homicide might do the trick.









































I hate you so much right now.  I wish I could leave town.  I wish you'd notice if I did.

I wish I could just get over this.

Well, it was fun for a while . . .

Swap package came today.  I guess my original swap partner disappeared, so I got an angel package.  It's really amazing that someone is willing to step up and send a second package to help mend someone else's dashed hopes.

Got this from my aunt Ann; not sure what it is, though.

Tidbits

The shawl of amazing enormousness and impracticality is entirely sewn up now, and I'm picking away at hiding the ends.  The 120 little ends . . .   This is what I get for trying to mix Star Trek with Jane Austen.  I have pretty much abandoned any hope of starting the other two projects that I had planned for the Starfleet Fiber Arts Corps, much less finishing them by the end of August.  It's the 25th already!  Four more months until Christmas!  How did this happen?

I did start the Bloody Stupid Johnson hat, and despite a few setbacks and a great deal of frogging, it's almost half-finished.  I don't think I'll finish it in time, but I just hope it fits this time.  I'm running out of regular-sized-headed friends to unload hats on.

I also started another design for a baby hat.  Technically it's a pattern that several other people have already designed, but not to the specification that I need, so I'm making my own.  It should be absurdly adorable, if a bit cliched by now.

It's also a surprise, so no peeking.

Fridays, Fridays

I wrote out a few depressing paragraphs, and then Jiji walked all over my keyboard and managed to erase it.  I'll take that as a sign.

  
She's a cunning kitty.

My swap package has been sent, and according to the tracking info, received, but I've gotten no confirmation from Ravelry.  Is she staring at the contents in disbelief, and too disgusted with my inept handling of the assignment to say anything?  Is everything sea green?  Is her internet out?  Does she have a life outside of Ravelry that is keeping her away?  No one told me swaps were so aggravating, argh . . .

Today was the deadline for sending things out, so I should be receiving a package sometime in the next week.  I'm so excited and curious to see what my partner picked out for me.  I hope it's purple, but I love all kinds of colors, so if it isn't purple I won't be at all disappointed.  I almost wish I'd said 'orange' and left it at that, just to open a box and see nothing but orange.  Orange is an unexpected color.  I love color.

I finally finished this darn bookmark.

Who knew second sock syndrome could be caught by such a small target?  My tension and row counts were inconsistent, so they don't quite match, but I'm just so happy to have another UFO off the board that I don't care.  It's a bookmark.  I'm happy.

Since that didn't take up all of my Wednesday, I also wove all the ends in on Jenn's finished mitten, and worked a couple more rows on the thumb of the unfinished one.  Have I mentioned that I hate those mittens?  I'm so glad I don't have to work on them again until next Thursday.  On the bright side, it's been so crisp and cool in the mornings that working on mittens is sounding charming again.  I can't wait to get back to work on my Hermione mittens.  I wish I had taken better notes (or any notes at all . . . ) on the first one.  I'm more or less starting from scratch with the second, except for the knowledge that I added eight stitches to begin with, and I can read cables pretty competently.  There's going to be some guesswork, though, and that makes me antsy.

Silas is rolling over these days.

He doesn't really look where he's going yet.